This year has been a great one at Hey! Manchester towers: we’ve promoted 48 gigs, helped organise two festivals – and listened to a whole heap of excellent records. Here are our favourites…

1. Destroyer – Kaputt. A firm fixture since its release in June, and we see it’s getting the kind of recognition it deserves. Hopefully next year we might get a chance to see Destroyer live.
2. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine. The best thing King Creosote has recorded so far? We think so.
3. Metronomy – The English Riviera. Twelve tracks of pop fun.
4. Bon Iver – Bon Iver. Back-to-back great albums now. Let’s hope he doesn’t develop a taste for world music, like Iron & Wine.
5. Wild Beasts – Smother. Not quite at the same level as Two Dancers, but a grower of a follow-up.
6. Other Lives – Tamer Animals. Much more subtle than their live show. One of the best new bands we’ve heard this year.
7. Josh T Pearson – Last of the Country Gentlemen. A great late-night records, in the spirit of early Low.
8. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. Possibly the band’s break-through album. Looking forward to hearing it live.
9. Beirut – The Rip Tide. A majestic return to form from Zach Condon and band.
10. Tune-Yards – W H O K I L L. Not a patch on her live show, but still one of the best albums of this year.
11. Yuck – Yuck. Featuring classic songwriting in the vein of Teenage Fanclub and Dinosaur Jr.

Ok, so it’s a whole 12 days off the pace (I’ve been busy booking shiny new shows!) but I finally got round to making a list of my favourite albums of last year:

1. Fever Ray – Fever Ray (Rabid Records)
2. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Vs. Children (Tomlab)
3. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
4. Au Revoir Simone – Still Night, Still Light (Moshi Moshi)
5. Sleeping States – In The Garden of the North (Bella Union)
6. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (Warp)
7. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (Domino Recordings)
8. The xx – xx (Young Turks/XL)
9. Miike Snow – Miike Snow (Sony)
10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! (Polydor)
11. At Swim Two Birds – Before You Left (Vespertine & Son)
12. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (Domino)
13. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Up From Below (Community Records)
14. Alaska in Winter – Holiday (Regular Beat)
15. Taken By Trees – East Of Eden (Rough Trade)

Oh, and one more for good luck – favourite soundtrack of the year:

• Clint Mansell – Moon OST (Black Records)

All these albums bar Grizzly Bear are rather handily available on Spotify – so click here for the Hey! Manchester albums of 2009 playlist.

We’ve been meaning to set up a playlist on million-member-strong music-streaming platform Spotify for a while – so now we have. For the first of hopefully a few, we thought we’d get all retrospective and include many of the bands who’ve played for us in the past, including:

Jens Lekman, Hush the Many, Nancy Elizabeth, Richard James, Viking Moses, Final Fantasy, Espers, Danielson, Los Campesinos!, Six Organs of Admittance, Jason Molina, Last Harbour, The Pony Collaboration, Alasdair Roberts, Marissa Nadler, Fireworks Night, Maria Taylor, Band of Horses, Of Montreal, Vetiver, The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit, Herman Dune, Emmy the Great, Jeffrey Lewis, Menomena, Mark Kozelek, Okkervil River, Pinback, Efterklang, Akron/Family, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, YACHT, David Thomas Broughton, Olafur Arnalds, Portico Quartet, Dirty Projectors, Polar Bear, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Volcano!, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Johann Johannsson, Murcof, Great Lake Swimmers, Phosphorescent, Miracle Fortress

The songs selected are a mixture of our favourites and whatever happened to be available. To play the first Hey! Manchester playlist, click here (assuming you already have Spotify) and hit the shuffle button bottom right. Where else are you going to hear pschedelic rock followed by trad folk followed by glammy electronica followed by post-rock?